Centre-Periphery Relations report Leading to Tamil eelam

The controversial Committee of “Centre-Periphery Relations”, headed by a former Tamil terrorist leader who was appointed by the Federal mind set Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe, to propose suggestions to the new Constitution has published their report recently.

The main feature of the proposal is to create a Tamil eelam in Sri Lanka through the Federal system.

The core Federal features of the proposal made by the Committee are as follows;

The powers of the Governor to be a real representative of the Centre to be reduced to make him a nominal head of the Provincial council system,

The Provincial public service to be brought under the Provincial Public Service Commission,

The concurrent list which is in the present constitution to be abolished as an impediment to the spirit of devolution,

The Provincial Police to be under an independent Provincial Police Commission,

All state lands in the Provinces to be administered by the Provincial Council.

The proposed new Constitution would lead to the division of the country according to the report of the Sub Committee on Centre-Periphery Relations, Colombo District MP and leader of the National Freedom Front (NFF) Wimal Weerawansa said yesterday.

Addressing the media at his party head office, Weerawsans said the Joint Opposition had predicted that the new constitution project would endanger the territorial integrity of the country.

“According to the report, it is being proposed to relieve the centre of the power of policy making and vest it in the provincial councils,” Weerawansa said, noting that the cancellation of the Concurrent List has also been proposed.

The Colombo District MP said that if the proposals in the report were adopted, provincial councils would become provincial states. He said the country would face the same fate as East Timor in such an eventuality.

Weerawansa alleged that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government had got disabled soldiers attacked with tear gas, but handled the LTTE and its backers with kid gloves.

“Now the government brands us as racists, but it never calls TNA leader R. Sampanthen or Northern Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran racists,” Weerawansa said.

Weerawansa said the government was likely to claim that what had been released was not only a draft. “If we wait for the final report, it would be too late,” he added.

The NFF leader said his party and its allies would stage streets protests to scuttle what he called efforts being made to divide the country through a new Constitution.

Colombo District MP and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila said the government was without no experts like D. S. Wijesinghe, Gomin Dayasri, Manohara de Silva, Arthur Samarasekera or political analysts like Dayan Jayathilaka to guide it on matters concerning the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state. Instead, it had surrounded itself with a bunch of proponents of federalism, he added.